Wearing number 35, Jimmy Howard played the position of goaltender while playing for the Detroit Red Wings during the 2010/2011 National Hockey League season. His salary for the time he spent on the ice that season was reportedly $800,000. The total team salary for the Detroit Red Wings was reportedly $64,325,000, so his salary was about 1.2% of the team's total reported payroll. Comparing his salary to the other players on his team, reportedly, the average salary for a player on the Detroit Red Wings was $2,474,038, while the median salary was $1,250,000. During the 63 games that he played that season, he scored 0 goals and had 1 assist - a total of 1 point. To find out how much he earned per game played, we can divide his reported salary by the number of games played. He earned $12,698.41 per game. Jimmy Howard had a plus/minus of 0, 4 PIM (penalties in minutes), 0 PP (power play goals), 0 SH (short-handed goals), 0 GWG (game winning goals), and took 0 shots. He had a shooting percentage in the 2010/2011 season of 0.00%. His goaltending statistics include 3615 min, 1830 SA (shots against), 168 GA (goals against), 2.79 GAA (goals against average), 90.80% save percent, and a record of 37-17-5, including 2 shutouts. If we want to try to evaluate his performance strictly as a goaltender, we can divide his salary by the number of shots against. His salary per shot against was $0,437.

Don't forget about taxes. Although each NHL season is composed of months two separate calendar years, having a salary in the United States of $800,000 we can estimate that he would have to hand over $255,284 in federal income taxes. For comparison, that is about the same amount of tax as the tax paid by 31 median high school teachers, 36 median police officers, or 51 median fire fighters. After paying the federal government, he would have $544,716 left over. However, he may still need to use some of that money to pay state or city taxes as well.

About the author

Author: Mark McCracken is a corporate trainer and author living in Higashi Osaka, Japan. He is the author of thousands of online articles as well as the Business English textbook, "25 Business Skills in English".